Editorial: Proponents should drop voter ID idea and move on

The solution to a problem that never existed may now have been solved.

It’s been struck down.

Commonwealth Court Judge Bernard McGinley could not have been more clear in casting his “vote” in the great Pennsylvania Voter ID law debate, a waste of time and money that has festered in the commonwealth for more than two years.

“Voting laws are designed to assure a free and fair election; the Voter ID law does not further this goal,” McGinley wrote in his ruling last week striking down the law.

He’ll get no argument from us. But he almost assuredly will from Republicans and Gov. Tom Corbett, who have been pushing this measure unabashedly in what they argued was an honest attempt to keep fraud from affecting our most precious civil right.

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The problem with their argument was that, according to their own court filings, they could not document a single case of the kind of mischief they vowed was a threat to honest elections in the commonwealth.

What they did have, unfortunately, was a frank admission by one Republican leader, state Rep. Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, that the law would help deliver the state to Republican standard-bearer Mitt Romney in his showdown with President Barack Obama in 2012.

Democrats and voting rights activists made it clear that the law, which would have upped the ante on the existing requirement to provide proof of residency and added a cumbersome requirement to show a photo ID, was erected as a hurdle to keep targeted voters from the polls, namely poor, minority, disabled or young residents.

In his 103-page ruling, McGinley agreed, castigating the measure for creating insurmountable obstacles to voting for a wide range of voters.

McGinley also concurred with another point made by those opposed to the new law -- that the state’s response to all these raised voices against the measure only compounded the problem. The state spent millions on an education program that only further confused voters, including issuing special Voter ID cards that many found hard to obtain.

The law never actually was fully implemented. Protests left the state in the position of saying poll watchers could request to see a photo ID, but could not block anyone who did not have one.

The argument in favor of tougher voter ID laws would carry a lot more weight if its supporters could offer even a scintilla of proof that this is a persistent, widespread problem that places the sacrosanct legitimacy of the vote in question.

We’re still waiting.

Instead what we have is millions wasted on a program that was never needed.

McGinley issued a permanent injunction striking down the law; if only he could do likewise with the disingenuous attempts to suppress voting rights.

We urge Gov. Corbett, who happens to be preparing to face voters himself in November, to let this bad idea die. The guess is he will not, and proponents will propel the measure to the state Supreme Court.

It is believed the state has spent close to $6 million in trying to implement and another $1 million in legal fees defending the law.

Corbett should cast his own vote, and dropkick this bad idea, a solution to a problem that never existed, and a shameful attempt to willfully suppress the most precious right of thousands of Pennsylvanians.

It was a bad idea when it was drawn up. It was a bad idea as the state showed a clear heavy-handed effort to rush it into effect. And it’s a bad idea now.

The voters saw through it. Judge McGinley made it clear where he stands. Now it’s time for proponents of this bad legislation to do the same.